Race Against Dementia and Dementia Australia Research Foundation Fellow
The University of Queensland, Australia
Dr Adekunle Bademosi studied his undergraduate degree at the University of Lagos in Nigeria, before relocating to Australia for his masters degree and subsequent PhD at the University of Queensland.
Adekunle was awarded the RAD DARF Fellowship in 2021 when working as a post-doctoral research fellow at the Queensland Brain Institute. His research sets out to understand the mechanisms that underpin the onset of neurodegenerative disorders. In particular, he is interested in providing key mechanistic and therapeutic answers to frontotemporal dementia.
“This fellowship provides me with the unique platform to work with great minds in the field of dementia. My vision for how major solutions will be discovered in overcoming dementia will only be achieved through collaboration and teamwork – much like how Formula 1 has advanced over the years. I anticipate that many great strides will be made this decade in the progression of dementia and different therapeutics.”
Dr Adekunle Bademosi
Research summary
Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is associated with progressive damage to the aspects of the human brain involved in the control of movement, problem solving, memory, social behaviour and other vital functions. Post-mortem sampling of the brains of FTD patients reveal the presence of large clumps of proteins, which are toxic and damaging to the brain. The brain is made up of billions of cells called neurons; these protein clumps were shown to build up within some of these neurons.
Researchers are yet to identify why these proteins begin to cluster. Further, each neuron has intrinsic protective mechanisms that are normally responsible for clearing up these protein clumps. However, in FTD these protective mechanisms fail.
In an attempt to understand how and why FTD begins, Dr Bademosi’s work will use very recently developed advanced imaging tools that have resolutions up to ten million times that of a standard digital camera. This project will utilise these tools to visualise these proteins before, during and after their accumulation within neurons derived from laboratory animals that have been experimentally induced to mimic FTD conditions.
Adekunle’s work has the unique potential of providing an early diagnostic tool prior to the observation of any FTD associated symptoms. It aims to provide the opportunity to screen the effect of new drugs on the protein clumps prior to commencing clinical trials.
